Fame and Fortune and Other Things I Don't Want or Can't Have

or Don't Want, Because I Can't Have

A few weeks back, I was trying to work out where the Welsh musician Ren fits into pop culture. You see, I follow a lot of artists, musicians, and authors who I think should be pretty well known, and I'm often surprised to find that almost no one else knows who they are. Ren seems to be one of those artists.

His work, solo and with the busking band The Big Push, is mainly on YouTube. He switches effortlessly between reggae, old-school metal, hip-hop, and a bunch of stuff that's nearly impossible to put a category on. If you haven't heard of him, you should take a moment after you finish reading this, of course, and look up one of his videos.

Anyway, contemplating Ren’s lack of notoriety left me wondering if, deep down, I want him to find his way into the trash compactor that is pop culture. I love his music because he’s not trying to be different in the same way that everyone else is trying to be different. Don’t get me wrong, I hope he achieves all the success he wants, but I fear that finding his way into the pop culture zeitgeist will wring out of him everything that makes him unique.

This, in turn, left me wondering if I would like my writing to become that kind of well-known. The contrarian in me says, “Fuck you, I don't give a shit if anyone ever reads a damn word I write.” I tell myself I’m sitting here pecking away at this keyboard because it's what I'm supposed to do or what I have to do. There's no choice to it, and it doesn't matter if anyone sees anything I produce.

The soft mushy part of me, the part that gets butt hurt when my friends and family don't subscribe to my Substack, is all like, “Why don't more people read my stuff? I have interesting things to say and damn it, people should be interested.” That part of me feels like I'm not doing this for myself. I'm doing this for, I don't know, my 15 minutes of fame or, God forbid, the kind of name recognition that comes with having a best-selling novel.

The truth of it is somewhere in between. I would be happy to have just one of my stories accepted for publication by, at this point, a semi-reputable literary journal. For some reason, I do want a stranger to read my work and say, “This is good enough to adorn the pages of our magazine or website.”

But why do I want that? Is it because I want my ego stroked? That's not the kind of person I thought I was. Or maybe it's fame and fortune. But again, the fame part is not really me, and the fortune part doesn't seem very likely. It could be that I feel I have something profound to say. I’m kind of full of myself, so that sounds more likely, but I don't think it's why I’m chasing publication.

Sometimes in the morning, if I open my e-mail before the Adderall has a chance to sink in, my mind will wander into a future where one of my stories has been accepted. In this alternate reality, I open an e-mail that starts with “We are pleased to inform you” or “We would like to offer,” or in truth, I’m not sure how it begins because I've never received one. I text my wife, Trena, and I am overcome with a sense of accomplishment.  

That right there is probably why I keep submitting stories and opening e-mails, hopefully, even though I can usually tell it's a rejection by the subject line. I know Trena understands how much I appreciate the sacrifices she's made for me to be in an MFA program, but I want to show her all our hard work has not been a fuckin’ waste of time.

And seriously, would it kill literary journal editors to leave a little suspense? Let us have just a few seconds of the butterflies in the pit of our stomachs as the e-mail opens.